Nigeria, Ebola and the myth of white saviours - Opinion

/nigeria-ebola-myth-white-saviours-20141

  • Nigeria, Ebola and the myth of white saviours, by Robtel Pailey
    http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/11/nigeria-ebola-myth-white-saviours-201411654947478.html

    In a 2012 article published by The Atlantic, Nigerian writer Teju Cole exposed the white saviour industrial complex for what it is: a pathology of white privilege.
    (...)

    At the height of Ebola, the myth of the white saviour has resurfaced again and again, framing Africans as infantile objects of external interventions. The white saviour complex has placed a premium on foreign expertise, while negating domestic capabilities.

    We’ve been assailed with images of mostly white foreigners flown out of the Ebola “hot zone” with the promise of expert care abroad.

    (...) While the US has been scrambling to address the few cases of Ebola on its shores with a series of policy missteps, Nigeria showed that it could be done by an African country on its own terms.

    (...) Some narratives erroneously attributed Nigeria’s success to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the WHO, and the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Yet, Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie responded with a sharp smack-down of this “lie”. She openly criticised The Washington Post and The New York Times for deliberating concealing the fact that local, not international efforts, had contained Ebola. For instance, it was a Nigerian woman, Dr Ameyo Adadevoh, who insisted on isolating the country’s first Ebola patient before eventually succumbing to the virus herself.

    (...) One thing Ebola has exposed about the white saviour complex is that it is voracious and unapologetic.

    (...) In her celebrated essay, “Can the subaltern speak?”, Gayatri Spivak rails against the problematic narrative of “white men saving brown women from brown men”. In actuality, no one has the capacity to “save” another human being. Believing that one can is the greatest form of self-delusion and narcissism.

    Contrary to the dominant Ebola foreign intervention narrative, Liberians, Guineans, and Sierra Leoneans are not waiting around idle, eager to be rescued by white saviours. While we welcome genuine collaboration, we remain our own heroes and heroines. The fact that more than 200 local healthcare workers died from Ebola is a testament to that heroism.

    • Why Ebola Fighters Are TIME’s Person of the Year 2014
      http://time.com/time-person-of-the-year-ebola-fighters-choice

      Lire aussi dans le @mdiplo, du mois : « Des treillis sous les blouses blanches »
      http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2014/12/CANARD/51050

      Il est vrai que travailler sur un virus comme Ebola relève du parcours du combattant. Depuis les attentats du 11 septembre 2001, tout laboratoire doit avoir à l’esprit le bioterrorisme. Les décideurs et bailleurs de fonds ont fini par croire en l’équation « virus émergent égale bioterrorisme ». Il s’en est suivi un raidissement administratif dissuadant considérablement toute recherche sur ce type d’agents pathogènes. Depuis 2011, cette dernière ressortit principalement à la direction générale de l’armement, qui a délégué à l’ANR son appel d’offres d’accompagnement spécifique des travaux de recherche et d’innovation défense (Astrid). Et c’est l’Agence nationale de sécurité du médicament (ANSM) qui gère les autorisations de travailler sur les fameux micro-organismes pathogènes et sur les toxines : Ebola, la brucellose, la tuberculose multirésistante, la ricine, etc. Monter un dossier se révèle chronophage et des plus complexes, et les réponses seront tardives et aléatoires.

      #recherche